You have 500 words to write a story, a short story, admittedly, but a story nonetheless – what will it be? An adventure, a romance or maybe even a comedy…. Without realising, you do this every day, and every day you define how it will start, what will happen in the middle and how it will finish!
Each of these stories are the most important things that you will ever create. Every word needs to be specially chosen, imparting it’s individual meaning, but forming a seamless part of the whole. These stories need a certain musicality to them, a natural and logical rhythm hidden within the plot.
In order to make these stories real, we need to listen what is going on around us and take the subtle hints and direction offered by our surroundings, correcting ourselves when the plot meanders and follows a wrong path. Some people set out for their story to be a tale of adventurer, but something gets in the way and they end up write something different.
Feeling confused yet? What is all this talk about stories and disconnects?
I believe that every day is a short story – our very own 500 word short story!
Everyone has moments in their lives that just feel “right.” I believe that this is when their life corresponds to their story. The more of these moments we have, the more content we feel about things. As we develop, our story develops, and as long as we keep control of our story rather than letting external influences dictate it, then we will stay close to this contentment.
Sometimes ignoring your story is simply the easier option. That is when people start to have problems. They lose the sense of who they are and there is a disconnect between their life and their “story.” Sometimes the gulf is so large that they never reconnect with their authentic story, and it seems that they are not living the life that was intended for them.
My inner story is that of an adventurer, an explorer. It has been like this since I was young, and I have not changed so much since. I am happiest when I am pushing boundaries, and trying new things. I don’t like sitting still and the thing I fear the most is normality. As a father of 3 very active children, I am never short of a new boundary to push or a new world to explore!!
However I haven’t always been able to feel this in my career, often confused as to what my story was or where it was going. There were times when I did not like to story I was in, I did not respect the characters and I was not proud of the plot, this was when I changed my pen and started a whole new narrative. Now I run my own business and my professional life and home life are all part of the same book!.
Running my own search business means that every new assignment is my own voyage of discovery. Every new client is a challenge to be overcome, and every person met, is a new story to be read.
What’s your story?
Written by Alex Turner, Edited by Paul Drury